Ulysses
by Alekto
Summary: Now Complete Ever wondered what Roxton did before he joined the Challenger Expedition ? According to Conan Doyle he waged a oneman war against slave drivers in South America. Here's how that war might have started.
1. Default Chapter

Ulysses  
  
By  
  
Alekto  
  
  
  
Summary:  
  
Ever wondered what Roxton did before joining the Challenger expedition? According to Conan Doyle he waged a one-man war against South American slave drivers. Here's how that war might have started.  
  
  
  
Disclaimer:  
  
Other people own the Lost World characters. I'm just borrowing them for a while.  
  
  
  
Author's note:  
  
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made a brief reference to Roxton's activities prior to his departure for the plateau in the original book - The Lost World. My first Lost World story, "Hunter, Hunted" concerns how that past came back to haunt Roxton on the plateau in the series present. This story is retrospective, again first person POV, of what Roxton might have been doing before meeting Marguerite, Malone, Challenger or the others.  
  
  
  
Acknowledgements:  
  
I would like to thank Julia and Mary for the work they have put in beta reading for me. Any mistakes remaining are all mine.  
  
  
  
Rating: PG (at the moment)  
  
  
  
********  
  
  
  
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'  
  
We are not now that strength which in old days  
  
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;  
  
One equal temper of heroic hearts,  
  
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will  
  
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.  
  
  
  
From "Ulysses"  
  
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  
  
  
  
********  
  
  
  
Chapter 1  
  
  
  
It was a hell of a view. People called the Himalayas the Roof of the World. It wasn't a sobriquet I would argue with, but to my mind, the Andes were just as majestic.  
  
  
  
I had been to South America before - before the world went mad and tried to destroy itself in a four-year paroxysm of mutual antipathy. It had been a different world then. I had been different. Then it had been a hedonistic circle of parties and pleasure seeking, of luxuries carelessly bought and sold, unmindful of the poor and dispossessed who clung to the gates of the great houses in Rio, Para, Caracas, Lima, Cartagena and a dozen other cities.  
  
  
  
Now, too many of the friends I had drunk and laughed with back then were now dead. There had been no trumpet calls, no heroic charges, and no undying glory to be immortalised by the poets. The poets had instead written all too truly of the hell that had been that war in the trenches - too truly to some people's way of thinking. They had not been there. For those of us who had been there, who had written those poems, it had been as close to hell on earth as any of wanted to get. We were the ones the war had changed, sometimes beyond recognition.  
  
  
  
I remembered that first Christmas in London afterwards, the crowds of merrymakers trying to return to a past that could not be reclaimed. I had met up with an old friend from school at the Garrick Club in St James's. He had served in the trenches, led men over the top, ran headlong into the shelling and the machine gun fire for no other reason than because it was expected of one of his class. He had got caught up on the wire, abandoned in no-man's land as shells fell all around him until the next attack enabled his own men to cut him down. The doctors called it shell shock. He was invalided back to England early in '18, but he never really recovered. One evening that Christmas at the Garrick, he broke down at the sound of a champagne cork being popped. An aged, florid faced veteran Major who had fought in the Boer War had laughed and accused him of cowardice, saying he had been hiding back in England instead of returning to his regiment.  
  
  
  
I had been the only one to respond to the slight to my friend. Had others not intervened and stopped me, it could have developed into quite an unpleasant incident. It was that encounter at the Garrick that decided me. I needed to get away from everything, from everyone. Back home everything was too near the surface. Avebury was no retreat, there were too many memories there as well, other distant no less painful memories. I had to get far away, to somewhere where I could try to find out who John Roxton was, if not Major the Lord John Roxton.  
  
  
  
Perhaps that was why I was here, back in South America, a place I had known before everything had changed for me. I was not here this time to revisit the cities or the great houses, but instead to get to know the countryside and the mountains: those incredible, snow-capped monsters that marched the length of the continent. There was a raw, untrammelled beauty to them, so alien to the tamer hill country of England. Even the stark bleakness of Wales and Scotland was nothing compared to this.  
  
  
  
To reach this place had taken weeks of travel, by steamship, train and finally by horseback. It was an outcropping of the Cordillera Oriental of Peru, a range of mountains dwarfed by the ponderous bulk of the Andes we had left behind us. I had hired two of the local Indians back in Cajamarca to guide me over the mountains. They probably believed I was just another crazy foreigner. There was such a timelessness to this place that I could easily imagine their ancestors had once felt the same about Francisco Pizarro four hundred years earlier.  
  
  
  
Ten years ago back in Africa I would have brought enough with me to require the services of at least half a dozen bearers to transport. In the war I had learnt the virtue of packing light. My sole concession to the old days lay with the rifles I had brought with me: a .318 bolt-action made for me by Westley Richards, and the heavier .470 double-ejector made by Holland and Holland. A colt .45 had found its way into my luggage mostly by instinct. I had spent the previous four years making sure that wherever I had to go, that handgun had gone with me. Some of my colleagues had called me obsessive about that little detail. The fact that I had survived where many of them hadn't, relieved any concerns I might have felt in that field. Once in the mountains I had taken to wearing the same style of serape and hat as my guides. I just wanted to fade into the background. Each of us rode one horse and led another carrying supplies. The horses were unprepossessing creatures, compact and wiry, untidy in their heavy coats against the cold of the mountains, but each had what the Spanish called 'brio escondido', a stamina and toughness that would carry them through the roughest terrain.  
  
  
  
So there we were, looking eastwards from the foothills of the Andes. The green, mist-shrouded carpet of the Amazon jungle was spread out below us. I could make out the glimmering threads of open water running through it that would join up far away to become the Amazon River. From where I stood to the Atlantic coast of Peru lay two thousand miles of nigh impenetrable jungle. It was humbling yet exciting, to be so close to one of the last great, unexplored regions of the world.  
  
  
  
My guides just waited for me. They had seen this view too many times in the past to be as awed by it as I was. I could sense one of them, Domingo, getting bored of the delay caused by my reverie. Salvador and Domingo Ramirez were brothers, but as dissimilar as brothers often are. Domingo was the younger, quick- witted and quick tempered. For him, an Englishman wandering pointlessly over the mountains was something he could not understand. To Domingo, a man had to have good reason to travel the cold high passes of the mountains. I was at a loss to explain why he had accepted the commission. Maybe it was the money, or his brother's urging: I couldn't say, and wouldn't ask. It was really none of my business. Salvador was the steadier, more considering of the two. He was ten years older than Domingo, making him about my age, but he looked far older.  
  
  
  
Apart from the view, I was here to take advantage of an offer given to me years before by Don Ferdinand Lopez whom I had met whilst on safari in Africa back in '11. His family had owned much of the surrounding land since the Eighteenth Century. His ancestors had built a Hacienda near the town of Tarapoto. I had sent him a wire from London, telling him that I finally intended to take him up on his long-standing offer to visit him and he had agreed. It seemed an ideal opportunity to reflect and spend some time with an old friend in quiet solitude away from cities and people.  
  
  
  
****  
  
  
  
That evening we reached a remote mountain village: Chalhuanca Alto. My guides had family here and we were to stay with them for a few days. Though I had never met any of these people, I received a welcome from them like few I had experienced. We feasted that first evening: the entire village gathered around a great central fire. The night was full of dancing and singing and laughter. To my astonishment I found myself joining in. It was wonderfully cathartic: I hadn't been able to laugh like that for so long. As the evening wore on the jokes got more vulgar and the atmosphere more raucous until early the next morning we finally called a halt.  
  
  
  
I woke up the next day with a hangover I wish never to have to endure again. My next shock was the presence of a woman, petite and dark haired, curled up against my side. I tried to think back, but I couldn't remember going to bed, let alone going to bed with a woman. Disturbing her as little as possible I got up and went outside. The air was crisp and chill. It cleared away some of the cobwebs and confusion but I still couldn't place the woman. I made my way over to the pump. Village women were already there, washing, gossiping, and collecting water. The remains of last night's fire had left a black scar on the ground in the central square of the village. Going by the amused expression on their faces, my condition was obviously familiar to them. I put my head under the spout of the pump and let them gleefully sluice icy water over me. That did the job. My head felt delicate and my stomach queasy, but it was an improvement. When I got back to my lodgings, the woman was gone without a trace. I hadn't even found out her name.  
  
  
  
The following days were glorious. The weather was still cool but the sky was almost always a clear intense blue, apparently something to do with the altitude. The horses were given a chance to rest as were we. I took the opportunity to devote some time to cleaning my guns properly. One day at the urging of, I think all the children in the village, I did a bit of target practice. They were duly impressed! I knew very well how good a shot I was - I had, after all, had enough opportunity to practice. It felt odd, though, just showing off like that. The last time I had fired a gun, it had been with the intention of killing a man who had been intent on trying to kill me. For a mere instant I was back there, in hell, then the moment was gone.  
  
  
  
I never saw the woman again for certain, though given the local women's habit of wearing headscarves it was difficult to be completely sure. Several times I thought I recognised her; only to find out I'd been mistaken on closer study. I had, however, noticed a dearth of men in the village. I assumed they were away working. I wasn't to discover the truth about that until later.  
  
  
  
One thing I did notice after the revelry of that first night was the general poverty of the village. Clothing was old and heavily repaired. Buildings too showed a want of maintenance. The villagers themselves were thin. The children were healthier than the adults. In times of hardship, the parents always see to their children's welfare first. I made gifts of as much of the food as I could spare, having to argue against their fierce pride to get them to accept.  
  
  
  
On the evening before our departure I noticed Salvador sitting alone, smoking, beside the fire. I walked up and sat down next to him. I lit a cigarette and offered him one. For a few minutes we sat there smoking in silence. Finally he stubbed out the cigarette and lit the one I had given him.  
  
  
  
"It was a good thing, you did, offering them the food," he murmured. "It is a big thing for them to have so great and important a caballero as a guest of the village."  
  
  
  
The silence crowded around again. I felt unsure of how to respond. Domingo, Salvador and all the villagers had addressed me simply as senor, no titles or 'my lord's'. It seemed there were some things I could not escape from. I had never sought the title, much less to inherit it as I had. I wanted to ask about the state of the village, the whereabouts of the men. I couldn't think how to phrase the question without giving offence to these prideful, independent people.  
  
  
  
"The day after tomorrow we will reach the Hacienda of Don Ferdinand," announced Salvador. I had lost the moment. Perhaps I would be able to find out from my old friend Don Ferdinand what had happened, why there was such poverty here.  
  
  
  
****  
  
  
  
Half a day's ride out of the village and we were in the midst of a forest of rubber trees. Two hours later a quartet of horsemen rode down the track toward us. Each was armed. They stopped, blocking the track in front of us. Their leader rode forwards and spoke in haughty Spanish, a language I could thankfully speak fairly well.  
  
  
  
"You are trespassing on private property. Leave!"  
  
  
  
I did not like his attitude. So far as I knew we were now on Don Ferdinand's land, and I was expected as Don Ferdinand's guest. "I am Lord John Roxton, I wired ahead…"  
  
  
  
"Ah, yes, senor Lord Roxton. You are expected. You and your servants will follow and I will escort you to the Hacienda. My name is Ramon." There was a sneer to his voice despite the apparent courtesy. Don Ferdinand was a gentleman of the Old School, to whom courtesy and chivalry were all. I was forced to wonder why this man was still in his employ.  
  
  
  
****  
  
  
  
It took the rest of that day and most of the next day to reach the house. My unwilling escort was civil but it was clear that we, particularly Domingo and Salvador, were not the most welcome of visitors. In that time we met other groups of mounted men, all of them armed. That first evening as we sat by the fire I had enquired of Ramon the reason for the armed men, asking if he had problems with bandits. The only reply I had received had been a brief, humourless laugh.  
  
  
  
We arrived at the Hacienda late in the afternoon. I remembered seeing the pictures of the place that Don Ferdinand had shown me. It had changed since then with the addition of a high garden wall topped with spikes, and wrought iron bars on the windows. Riding through the large open gates I noticed more men, all of whom carried rifles or shotguns. We dismounted as a scared looking boy scurried forwards to take the horses' reins. I had the growing feeling that something was very wrong. Domingo and Salvador were led off to the servants' quarters with a dismissive gesture from Ramon. I was ready to protest at their cavalier treatment, but a sharp glance from Salvador convinced me against it. I caught myself frowning - what did he know that I hadn't worked out yet?  
  
  
  
Ramon led me into the elegant hallway of the Hacienda. Compared to the building's rough exterior, the inside was ridiculously sumptuous. Persian carpets covered the floors, paintings on the walls, heavily carved and inlaid wooden pieces of furniture were completely in scale with the size of the place, but somehow still looking wrong. It was just too over done, sheer excess. Don Ferdinand's fine sense of taste and style was absent in the decoration here. A young man, whose clothing bore the unmistakable stamp of Savile Row and Jermyn Street, walked languorously toward me. The expression on his face was one of supercilious disdain matched with a sly cunning that would have better suited a weasel. There was a woman on his arm, sleek and predatory, with long dark hair and fathomless eyes. Ramon performed the introductions, smirking slightly as he did so.  
  
  
  
"Lord John Roxton, I have the honour to present his Excellency, Don Ernesto Lopez and his sister Dona Maria Lopez. Don Ernesto is the nephew of our late, lamented Don Ferdinand who had the misfortune to meet with an accident while out riding; he fell from his horse and broke his neck. Don Ernesto, Dona Maria, this is Lord John Roxton of whom your Uncle spoke. His brother too met with an accident while out hunting with him."  
  
  
  
I looked from one to the other, from Ramon's insolent grin to the sneering appraisal of Don Ernesto and the almost devouring regard of Dona Maria. I felt uncomfortably like I was being displayed as the latest exhibit at the zoo. My old friend Don Ferdinand was dead. There had been a notable lack of remorse on the part of either his nephew or niece. As for the accident, Don Ferdinand had been the finest horseman I had ever met. I wouldn't say he couldn't have fallen and broken his neck, but I'd come off too many horses myself to deny that even the best horseman is sometimes going to fall. It just seemed unlikely.  
  
  
  
The thing that really worried me was that in Africa, Don Ferdinand had said that he was the last of his line. His only sibling - a brother - had died childless while he himself had never married. It was a detail he had found embarrassing, this failure to produce an heir, and had kept as secret as possible.  
  
  
  
But now, I was in his house being greeted by his soi-disant nephew and niece. I could not help but wonder what had I got myself into?  
  
  
  
  
  
To be continued… 


	2. 2

Ulysses  
  
By Alekto  
  
All notes, disclaimers etc, as for Chapter 1  
  
  
  
Chapter 2  
  
  
  
Servants had already unpacked my luggage by the time I was escorted to my room. Don Ernesto had announced that he was to hold a Ball in a few days' time to introduce me to his neighbours. There were other Haciendas within easy travel, each at the heart of a great plantation, not to mention what passed for High Society in Tarapoto.  
  
  
  
It would have been churlish on my part to try to demur. Don Ernesto had sent immediately to Tarapoto for a tailor to fit me for a dinner jacket. That had been one of the first things I had left in storage at the hotel back in Cajamarca. I had hoped not to need it. Now, once again, I would have to do the tedious rounds of dances. As far as Society was concerned, I was a very eligible bachelor. I had wealth and title, all that a socially aware mother could want for a daughter. Love or even genuine attraction was largely an irrelevance, so long as a prospective partner was in Debretts Peerage, the 'stud book' of English Society.  
  
  
  
I was so tired of it all. I'd had enough of the whey-faced debutantes facilely giggling at my every utterance, simpering through lowered lashes as I did my duty and escorted them round the dance floor. The sheer banality of that life repelled me. I wanted none of it. The continuance of the title was in my hands now, since William's death. I had never wanted the responsibility of providing an heir. I just wanted to find a woman I could love for her own merits, rather than because she possessed wealth or breeding, and who would in turn love me for who I was and not because of title or money. I both wanted and needed to find a woman I could respect. If…when I found such a woman, I would ask her to marry me, and London's Society could go to hell if they dared to criticise me for it. In the meantime, I was stuck here, playing the gracious guest.  
  
  
  
The day after my arrival, Don Ernesto insisted on taking me on a tour or his estate. He had imported some fine Andalucian horses from Spain which he'd had saddled and waiting for us. They were magnificent creatures, fine and high-spirited. Their saddles and bridles were made in the traditional Spanish style of beautifully hand-tooled leather and decorated with silver. The cost of outfitting even one of these horses would have been enough to rebuild Chalhuanca Alto with money to spare. It was a detail that appeared not to worry my host.  
  
  
  
We rode out shortly after dawn. An armed escort and servants with a packhorse laden with lunch followed a decorous way behind us. Don Ernesto brought a hunting rifle with him: a lightweight 5.6mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer bolt action that was too heavily engraved and decorated for my taste. It was apparent from the outset that it was not he who had to take care to keep all the metalwork on it clean. At his urging I had taken with me the .318 Westley Richards. Both rifles were being carried in leather boots slung from the saddles.  
  
  
  
The weather was fine and clear with the trail ahead narrow but well maintained. It made for an enjoyable ride. Don Ernesto took pleasure in pointing out the extent of his holdings, and the places where he had added to Don Ferdinand's already extensive holdings. We settled down for lunch at a small pavilion that the servants had set up in readiness for our arrival. The meal was excellent: fine Serrano ham with fresh rolls and salad accompanied by an old Rioja. Don Ernesto seemed to require relatively little participation from me in his conversation, so I sat back and let him talk. I was still unsure enough about the background to the present situation to want to take advantage of any information that he would reveal.  
  
  
  
"So, Lord Roxton, are you now so enamoured of Peru that I should give orders that everyone should now start calling you Don Juan?" I smiled thinly. The joke had not been funny the first time he had tried it, and repetition did not improve it. Heedlessly, he continued "Or perhaps it is the beautiful Dona Maria of whom you are enamoured, to whom your thoughts now fly…"  
  
  
  
God, no! I would as soon pay court to a piranha as I would her, not to mention the fact that I would probably be a great deal safer with the fish.  
  
  
  
"Ah, my dear Roxton, on Friday night your dance card will be full," Don Ernesto joked. "I know my beloved sister will wish to dance with you as well as many other ladies who have been starved of such urbane company. I shall also have to introduce you to the other members of our business cartel. I'm sure you will get on with them. We have all done very well out here, you know. Oh, the local workers can sometimes be problematic, but they are, after all, little more than ignorant peons so you can't really expect much of them. It's the Indian blood - makes them lazy. They cannot be trusted to work without close supervision."  
  
  
  
I let him ramble on. I'd met that sort of arrogant discrimination before in Africa and it had always annoyed me then. On many safaris the white hunters' incompetence and their unthinking belief in their inherent superiority married to their refusal to listen to the advice of their local guides, had led to disaster. Usually it was the native guide who had died or been crippled, trying to protect his charges from the results of their own stupidity.  
  
  
  
"It was tragic to hear of your brother's death, Roxton, such a very unfortunate accident." There was something mocking in his tone. Did he think I had killed William on purpose? Keeping my face blank, I met his gaze.  
  
  
  
"Oh?" I asked non-committally. He just smiled knowingly in reply. My God, he did think I'd murdered my brother. I fought to hold back my instinctive, outraged response. This was something I would have to play very carefully, especially as it was seeming more and more likely that Don Ferdinand's accident might have been nothing of the sort.  
  
  
  
I leaned back in my chair, sipping my wine, but behind the casual façade my mind was racing. Don Ernesto had as good as admitted the extent of his influence in Tarapoto the day before. He would almost certainly have significant influence, if not control over any legal authorities based there. Then there was this cartel he spoke about: businessmen who were allied to him. If they had held concerns over Don Ferdinand's death, surely they would have forced some sort of an investigation…unless they had complicity in it. Working it through, it seemed likely that he was sounding me out because of the way in which my brother had died. Sounding me out for what, though?  
  
  
  
The region was certainly not free of commercial exploitation. I had heard, of course, of the so-called "Rubber Barons" who had been busily exploiting the natural resources of the Amazon since the market for rubber made it worthwhile back in the 1880s. Like the rest of Europe I had heard the rumours and stories that had leaked out of forced labour and atrocities against the local Indian tribes. Before the war, Sir Roger Casement's investigations into outrages perpetrated on the Indians at Putumayo by the British based Peruvian Amazon Company were the subject of debate for months in London including questions in Parliament. Despite an explicit two page article in the Illustrated London News that shocked the country, and a five year long public enquiry which found that in the Putumayo region the company had employed 50,000 Indians of whom 42,000 died, no one was convicted.. It was common knowledge that the Rubber Barons were concentrated in the settlements of Iquitos and further downstream at Manaus. As Don Ernesto spoke, I could not help but wonder if he might have any connection at all with any of these 'entrepreneurs' and their ways of conducting business.  
  
  
  
Curiosity was all very well, but I had come out here with the intent of getting away from it all. The best thing I could do, I reasoned, was to hand the problem over to the local authorities as soon as it was practicable. To have to rely on whatever law remained in Tarapoto was out of the question. With that being so, the only alternative was the authorities in Cajamarca, on the other side of the mountains. I decided I would write a note on my return to the Hacienda. No… I would need more information first, ideally with some sort of proof to back it up with. The police would not get involved with someone of Don Ernesto's rank without something considerably more compelling than a foreigner's vague suspicions. That meant waiting and biding my time until Friday and the Ball to see what I could find out there.  
  
  
  
All that I had to do between now and then was to convince them that I, too, was not the most scrupulous of people. How difficult could it be…?  
  
  
  
We started riding again after the inevitable siesta. The forest of rubber trees gave way to a rocky hillside that had great gouges excavated from it. Teams of labourers, some clad in little better than rags, were at work with picks and shovels. Don Ernesto gestured proudly at the site, encompassing it in an expansive gesture. "This is…a little investment project some colleagues and I have been working on. We found silver here, you see. Oh, not in the sort of concentration as in other areas, but our overheads here are so very much lower, making it quite a profitable operation overall. We use convict labour. I think it makes far better sense than letting the lazy filth rot in jail."  
  
  
  
I looked more closely at the workers. They ranged from youths, some of whom were barely into their teens, to men who were stooped with age. There must have been close on a hundred men there, each with a heavy shackle around his left ankle. Guards rode slowly between them, lashing out with leather quirts to discourage any signs of slacking. Others, carrying shotguns, were positioned around the quarry.  
  
  
  
The guards on duty had not yet noted our approach. Don Ernesto reined in and dismounted, indicating that I should do the same. He pulled out his rifle and aimed in the direction of the convicts. An unpleasant smile crossed his face. "Time to ginger them up a bit, don't you think." The accent he put on mocked my own.  
  
  
  
He fired. I hadn't really believed that he would. I had thought it was all a bluff for my benefit. The shot tore the shovel out of the hands of one of the workers. The rest of them immediately dropped to the ground. Then the guards now suddenly on the alert scoped out the area for the source of the shot. After he had fired, Don Ernesto had dragged me into cover. He was crouched there with me, giggling. He gestured at the .318 I held in my hands. "Your turn!"  
  
  
  
I couldn't look at him. There was something repellent, malignant almost, about that giggle - it was like he was a child pulling the wings off flies. I'd already made the choice to play along with this…this misanthropy. My conscience, which had taken such a battering during the war, was screaming at me again. It had been my own decision this time that put me in a position I hated, of having to do something reprehensible in the hope that greater good would come out of it all in the end.  
  
  
  
I lifted my rifle. Don Ernesto's hand rested briefly on the barrel. "Don't kill anyone, my dear fellow. We don't want to cause a drop in production," he murmured. That was all the death of one of these labourers would mean to him, I realised. I aimed carefully. My target was no more than a hundred and fifty yards away: an easy shot with the scoped .318. I exhaled slowly and squeezed the trigger. The harsh report echoed against the surrounding rocks. The straw hat worn by one of the cowering workers had leapt from his head. Shooting now to clear the tension I felt, I cycled easily through the bolt action clearing the spent cartridge and fired again. The hat, which had been slowly drifted downwards was caught again and tugged away. A second and a half later, my third shot hit it again, virtually disintegrating it.  
  
  
  
To my side I heard Don Ernesto's wild jubilation at my shooting. I felt sickened by what I had just done. Only days earlier I had been blithely showing off my marksmanship for the amusement of children, now I was doing it for the amusement of a madman.  
  
  
  
Leaving me to my thoughts, Don Ernesto had remounted and was ready to ride in to the quarry. I took a couple of deep breaths to regain some semblance of self-control, then mounted and caught up to him. I wasn't sure what sort of reception to expect. Don Ernesto had identified the labourers as convicts. I supposed that to mean that the guards were prison warders of some sort.  
  
  
  
The lead guard saw us as we rode in and he rode to meet us. His face carried a broad, sycophantic smile. Not warders, then - these were Don Ernesto's men for sure.  
  
  
  
"Welcome, Jefe! That was some fine shooting to witness. Your skill is, as always, unsurpassed."  
  
  
  
Don Ernesto grinned, indicating me like a child showing off a new-found toy. "Luis, this is Lord John Roxton, an honoured guest, who is staying with us for a while. The shovel was my shot; the hat was his. As you have said, he is indeed quite a marksman. Lord Roxton, this is Luis Ortega, one of my most trusted lieutenants."  
  
  
  
Ortega looked at me and uttered a brief "Encantado!" I simply nodded in reply. Fortunately Ortega did not seem to require any further comments from me. While he and Don Ernesto spoke, I studied the labourers. A few of them returned my stare with fragile, timid defiance. Most simply looked away - too tired or too scared to meet my gaze. I had seldom felt so sullied by my own acts.  
  
  
  
On the long ride back to the Hacienda, I let Don Ernesto talk, thankful that all I had to do was occasionally agree with whatever he was saying. Those workers back at the quarry were not convicts. They were forced labour, and probably amongst their number were some of the missing men from Chalhuanca Alto. Don Ernesto had shown me this quarry, but what if there were others like it hidden in these mountains, perhaps being operated in similar style by some of the other businessmen in the cartel. Friday's Ball would be a good place to start trying to find out.  
  
  
  
That night, I had some of the worst nightmares I'd experienced since the end of the war.  
  
  
  
To be continued… 


	3. 3

Ulysses  
  
By Alekto  
  
All notes, disclaimers etc., as for Chapter 1  
  
I've changed the setting to allow for anonymous reviews, so please R&R.  
  
  
  
Chapter 3  
  
  
  
The next days were filled by the preparations for the Ball. Food was delivered in quantities vast enough to make me imagine a guest list that would include half of Peru. Servants hastened to prepare the Hacienda, polishing and moving furniture, rolling back rugs to reveal glistening parquet floors and draping swags and garlands throughout the house and garden. The effect was startling. The Hacienda, which had looked like a grim, fortified house, was being transformed into a thing of beauty. The removal of furniture to give guests the room to walk and dance had revealed the elegant dimensions and scale of the place. I was finally able to see Don Ferdinand's hand in the decoration. I'd had the second fitting for my dinner jacket. Whatever style I might have asked for, it had turned out as an American style tuxedo. Oh, well, when in Rome…  
  
  
  
The guests started to arrive from Friday morning. It was like something out of an earlier century. They arrived in carriages accompanied by liveried escorts or on horseback. I realised that I hadn't seen more than half-a-dozen cars since I'd disembarked from the steamer and boarded the train to Cajamarca back in Trujillo. I guessed it to be something to do with the thin air and the high altitude, or perhaps the frequent steep inclines of the roads. I'd meant to ask, but just hadn't got around to it.  
  
  
  
I made myself absent from the house during the day, and took the opportunity to find out how Salvador and Domingo had been coping. It turned out that they were billeted in the collection of huts hidden from the main house that passed as servants' quarters. Both men looked sullen and ill at ease as I approached. Domingo had acquired a black eye that was only now beginning to fade.  
  
  
  
"Buenos dias, my lord," greeted Salvador warily. I caught the implicit warning in the 'my lord'. It had been the first time since I had engaged his services that he had addressed me by the title. The previous easy friendliness was gone replaced by carefully distant courtesy.  
  
  
  
With a slight jerk of my head, I indicated that they should accompany me. Once we were out of earshot of the huts, I halted and looked pointedly at Domingo's black eye. "What the hell happened to you?"  
  
  
  
"No importante," he muttered truculently.  
  
  
  
"Yes, it bloody is 'importante'!" I retorted. My anger, which had been growing for the past few days, was bubbling to the surface. I had always hated the sort of deception that I was involved in. I just had the misfortune to be good at it. Then I saw the guarded expressions on their faces, the same sort of expressions I'd seen on some of the faces on the men from the quarry. At the very least, they thought I was working with Don Ernesto. I had to tell them the truth: I needed one of them to carry the message through to Cajamarca.  
  
  
  
I spoke for about fifteen minutes and they listened in cautious silence. I told them of my suspicions about Don Ferdinand's death, Don Ernesto's mention of a business cartel of which he was a part, and finally I told them about the quarry. I think, more than anything else, it was the anger that I was unable to keep out of my voice that persuaded them of the truth of my words. Their previous diffidence shifted to a concern for my welfare when I told them of my plans to try and learn more through attending the Ball.  
  
  
  
"Why do you choose to interfere, Senor? It is unnecessary. What is it about this that makes it your fight, that you risk your life for people you do not know and owe nothing to?" Salvador sounded genuinely confused.  
  
  
  
I tried to think how to answer. Once I had apprehended there was something wrong here, it had never seriously occurred to me that I ought not to interfere in some way. A part of me felt guilty that all I was considering doing was informing the authorities, that I should be doing more than that to help them. As to the reasons why? Because I could, because someone had to, because if I did nothing then how many more would suffer from my lack of action. I could not help but appreciate the irony: in forcing that shooting match at the quarry, Don Ernesto had given me the first inklings of some sense of responsibility for the welfare of those people. It was he who had forced me to get involved.  
  
  
  
Salvador and Domingo were waiting for an answer. I offered them the only one I could under the circumstances: "It needs doing."  
  
  
  
Still not really understanding, they left. I wasn't surprised they didn't understand. To a certain extent, I didn't understand myself. I simply knew that I felt something needed to be done, and that since I was there, it might as well be I that did it. I wandered through the ornamental gardens on the way back to the house, thinking that whoever had designed them had possessed an understanding of the desire of young couples to be out of sight whilst courting. Only that could explain the maze of hedges and hidden groves. It was too early in the season for many of the flowers or shrubs to be in bloom, leaving the sculptured lines of the garden clear to see.  
  
  
  
I walked slowly, thoughtfully, not noticing that I was instinctively walking softly as if stalking prey. Apart from the thin, high altitude air and the clarity of the light, I could almost have been walking through the maze at Hampton Court. I stopped, thinking I'd heard something, then:  
  
  
  
"Pendejo! Estupido tonto!" The voice was faint: a woman's voice held down to an angry half shout, hissing abuse at someone. "What did you think you were doing? We don't know if he is with us, yet. How dare you endanger us all with your pathetic self gratification, your desire to be known as un cazador estupendo."  
  
  
  
I froze, recognising the voice at last: Dona Maria. But whom was she talking to? It could only be Don Ernesto. He was the only one who had revealed anything to me that prudence dictated ought to have been kept hidden.  
  
  
  
"But, mi hermana, you did not see the expression on his face after the shooting match, when he had been forced to shoot only the peon's hat. He is a hunter: he wanted to make the kill."  
  
  
  
I had to admit that part was true, except that it had been Don Ernesto whom I had wanted to kill at the time, a small but significant detail.  
  
  
  
"Even so, we will wait. The others will be here this evening: we will discuss the matter with them, as well as your reckless behaviour in this affair. When and if we choose to approach him, it will be with more information to hand than just Society rumours and our own observations. He is English, and bear in mind that the English are a strange, perfidious race."  
  
  
  
I heard footsteps moving away, heading back toward the house. So it seemed that Dona Maria was in charge, despite the front they put up. It made sense. I had to agree with her assessment that Don Ernesto was both impetuous and undisciplined. He would not have had the self-control needed to plot and work toward what had been created here. Interesting. She has to use him because, as a woman, she would have problems gaining the respect of the thugs who worked for the Hacienda, and Don Ernesto is a weak link that could be exploited. I wondered how Don Ernesto felt about playing second fiddle to his sister. Perhaps that visit to the quarry was his way of showing his independence, of trying to get me in on his side. He might even be thinking of getting rid of her. It would be interesting to see how the other members of the cartel react to them: did they know that Don Ernesto's just a puppet dancing to his sister's tune? If her threat to reveal his actions to the cartel was anything to go by, they knew.  
  
  
  
I found a gazebo hidden from the house and settled down for a siesta. I had the idea that I would need to be alert that evening. A couple of hours later, I went back to the house to get ready for the Ball. My tuxedo had been delivered from Tarapoto and was laid out ready for me. I got dressed, and then standing in front of the mirror slicked back my hair. Out of the army now the war was over, I was no longer obliged to keep my hair trimmed short and had decided to let it grow a bit. I looked at the reflection again. Losing the moustache had definitely been a good move, I decided. I slipped on the jacket and shrugged a few times to settle it over my shoulders.  
  
  
  
For all that I was going to a ball, I felt like I was getting ready for battle. I'd had a growing sense of trepidation all afternoon, but that was nothing new. I knew that once I'd committed myself to a course of action, the trepidation would go away. It wasn't like the gut-wrenching terror of being in a shallow bunker under an artillery barrage, hearing the shells impact closer and closer, and knowing there was absolutely nothing you could do. It was something far subtler, less immediate. I checked the reflection again. There was no sign that there was anything untoward. Being in command during the war had taught me how to project a façade of self-confidence and unconcern. I smiled, realising that in an odd way I was beginning to enjoy this, especially now the duplicity was nearly at an end. In many ways it was like the anticipation I had always felt at the beginning of a hunt. Time to go and beard the lion in its lair…  
  
  
  
****  
  
  
  
Back in London, before the war, I'd been invited to countless balls, galas, or receptions - call them what you like - on a regular basis. I found them tedious for the most part, the same people, debating the same tired arguments, dancing with the same people. If not the balls in town, then there was the inevitable round of country house parties: shooting or riding to hounds followed by dinner and billiards. They were only marginally more interesting than partnering some ancient dowager in a waltz because she once had the misfortune to marry your second cousin, once removed (or something), who went mad and shut himself up in his mouldering country pile.  
  
  
  
The ball arranged by Don Ernesto was different. It had more the atmosphere of a boardroom where there just happened to be music and dancing. Dona Maria had taken it upon herself to introduce me around. The men looked at me calculatingly, as if sizing me up for some task of which I was as yet ignorant. With a few notable exceptions, the women were decorative and vacant eyed. They were arrayed almost uniformly in traditionally Spanish style, with elegant mantillas, shawls and lace.  
  
  
  
What did surprise me was the number of Europeans and North Americans. I caught brief snatches of accents that seemed alien to this Peruvian setting: American, English, German... I found myself in conversation with a Brazilian: Anthero de Lobeiro who ran a rubber exporting business based in Iquitos. The woman he was escorting was more than twenty years his junior and she was certainly not his daughter.  
  
  
  
"I have studied your career with interest, Roxton. Do you know, I only just missed meeting you on that last trip to East Africa that you made before the war?"  
  
  
  
When I killed my brother…  
  
  
  
"You were on your way back to Kampala, as I was leaving for Nairobi. It's strange that we should have missed each other so closely then, yet meet up now on another continent. Now tell me, what is the most dangerous game you've hunted?" he was looking at me, an expression of atavistic excitement on his face.  
  
  
  
"Well, there was a man-eater back in Tsavo, it took us weeks to track him down…"  
  
  
  
"No, no, you miss the point. Understandable, after all, you don't know anyone here, do you, you don't know how like-minded many of us are," he said coyly.  
  
  
  
I had a nasty suspicion I could see where this was leading. I'd heard rumours, of course, around the campfires at the conclusion of hunts. I'd heard of hunters, who felt that even going after lion, tiger or elephant was insufficient excitement; hunters who wanted to go after a prey that could think and plan and provide a real challenge. Oh yes, I'd heard the rumours. Perhaps I'd been overly naïve in thinking they were no more than that.  
  
  
  
The conversation drifted onto other subjects: the increasing competition caused by the growth of the rubber industry in Malaya, the war, the Bolshevik revolution, and many others. I escorted Dona Maria around the dance floor on several occasions, as I was obliged to do. I had to admit that she was a fine dancer, not to mention being beautiful: beautiful in the way a Masamune blade is beautiful.  
  
  
  
It was past midnight when I heard a disturbance at the door. A group of Don Ernesto's guards boiled into the ballroom, led by Ramon. Supported by two of them was a battered figure. Don Ernesto pushed to the front as the crowd melted away to form a loose circle around them. One of the guards twisted the figure's arm adroitly behind his back, bringing his head up. It was Salvador. Ramon moved forward and whispered into Don Ernesto's ear for a few moments. In the time that took, Dona Maria glided to join her brother. She spoke briefly to him, then uttered a short, gleefully unpleasant laugh.  
  
  
  
"Lord Roxton!" she beckoned. I had no choice but to join her. "This man, whom you brought here, has tried to effect a prison break. Unfortunately, he was shot and killed in the attempt. It's lucky you were at hand to prevent such an outrage." At her urging, Ramon offered me his handgun, butt first. I had little choice except to take it.  
  
  
  
The guards backed away. Salvador stood there, swaying slightly, in the centre of the room. I was no more than five feet from him, the gun held loosely at my side pointed at the ground. All around there was a pregnant hush, heavy and threatening. I met Salvador's eyes. There was no apology there, no hope, no recrimination, just grim fatality. My mind was in turmoil. If I shot him now, it would be a quick, clean death, more than that which could be guaranteed at the hands of Ramon or Don Ernesto. I tried to convince myself that he was dead whatever happened, that he had brought this upon himself. I couldn't. The habit of command was still there, and he was one of my men.  
  
  
  
"Senhor de Lobeiro!" I was desperate, grasping at straws, now, trying to work out some way of salvaging the situation. "I have a proposal. You wish to try your skill in the hunt? A wager then, you against me. The first to bring down our Senor Ramirez, here. Interested?" I forced a wolfish smile to my face. I tried to convince myself that it gave him a small chance of getting clear, but I knew that it was no more than sheer selfishness on my part. All I was doing was offering up Salvador to be chased like an animal, just so I could escape shooting him in cold blood. I had to keep the sudden surge of self-loathing from my face: it would ill befit the role I was trying to play.  
  
  
  
"Excellent idea, Roxton. Shall we say a thousand pounds to the winner?" He could have said ten thousand for all I cared. I just had one more thing to take care of.  
  
  
  
"Feed him and treat his injuries," I suggested. "We want to make this as interesting as possible, don't we?" The challenge was there. De Lobeiro had no option really but to agree. I took charge, praying that Ramon would be caught up in the situation enough to obey me, and ordered them to accompany me to the huts with Salvador to get him fixed up. I needed to find out what had happened to Domingo.  
  
  
  
Our small procession headed over to the collection of squalid huts. No one said anything. With ill grace the guards found water and clean cloth with which to bind Salvador's injuries. I was relieved to note that they weren't too bad. With his knowledge of the terrain, there was a chance, a tiny chance that he could elude de Lobeiro. Taking advantage of my sudden 'respectability', I sent the guards from the room. I needed to talk to Salvador. I knew I wouldn't have the time to say all the things I wanted to: questions, apologies and more. I had a duty to both Salvador and to his brother, Domingo.  
  
  
  
"What the hell happened? Hurry. We won't have long to talk."  
  
  
  
"I followed when you went to the quarry, senor. They had my father there. I tried to free him, but… Don't be concerned about me tomorrow. I'll have a chance, which is more than I had an hour ago, and I thank you for that. That pelado, Ramon, has said that Domingo is being held in a storeroom in the house. I'll lead that aviador cabron, de Lobeiro, away. You must rescue my brother. Please, I beg you, senor."  
  
  
  
I couldn't understand why he would want to thank me for the fate which I'd consigned him to. His concern for his brother, despite the threat to himself, was something I could too easily relate to. Of course I would find his brother. I nodded slowly. "I give you my word. I'll promise you this too: I'm going to take Don Ernesto down…whatever it takes."  
  
  
  
He looked at me. I was angry, angrier than I'd been in a long time. I meant every word I'd said to him. From the look in his face, Salvador realised it as well. "Gracias, senor. Vaya con Dios!"  
  
  
  
I held out my hand, and he shook it. "You too." Despite his words, I knew he wouldn't survive the hunt. Don Ernesto and the others had too much to loose to let that happen.  
  
  
  
I also knew that from tomorrow, they'd be after me as well.  
  
  
  
  
  
To be continued… 


	4. 4

Ulysses  
  
By Alekto  
  
All notes, disclaimers etc., as for Chapter 1  
  
  
  
Chapter 4  
  
  
  
I did not sleep well that night. I was looking forward to the next day with a mixture of dread and excitement. When I finally managed to drift off to sleep, it was no more than an excuse for my mind to rerun the all- too-familiar nightmare of that last hunt that William and I had been on in Africa. I woke up, shaking, and drenched in sweat as the first grey hints of dawn were lightening the sky. Salvador was going to be released soon. He'd been given a six hour head start on de Lobeiro and I, with no food, no tools and certainly no weapons.  
  
  
  
By dawn, we were all downstairs. The topic of conversation at breakfast was inevitably the upcoming hunt. Supply packs had been made up for de Lobeiro and I. The only rules were that each of us was to leave the Hacienda alone, beyond that, anything was allowed. I overheard some of the men discussing a previous hunt which had devolved into both hunters going after each other, rather than the target. Bets were being laid on the outcome of the day's hunt. Anthero de Lobeiro would be quite a hunter if the odds I was being given against him were anything to go by.  
  
  
  
Both of us spent the morning checking and rechecking our gear. I had to give him credit: he did it himself rather than relied on his servants: one of the hallmarks of a careful man. He was riding a quality horse showing more than a hint of thoroughbred character, and leading another, equally well bred as a pack horse. I'd taken up Don Ernesto's offer of using two of his Andalucian horses. They weren't ideal for the job, but I knew I'd have a lot of riding to do over the day and didn't want to get my own mountain ponies blown too early on. There was a fair chance I'd need their stamina for what was to come later.  
  
  
  
De Lobeiro had won the toss and was the first to leave the Hacienda. Neither of us had been allowed to see the direction in which Salvador had left that morning, so it would be very much a matter of luck as to which of us would be first to cross his trail. That is, if I had been intending to follow the script, which naturally I wasn't.  
  
  
  
An hour after de Lobeiro left, I mounted and prepared to ride out. Behind me the party-goers of the previous night were getting ready to follow, complete with their entourages of servants and picnics. Were it not for the prospect of someone getting killed, I could easily have believed that the ladies of the group were off on their way to Henley Regatta or Royal Ascot. Dona Maria, resplendent in a white dress and crimson shawl came over to me as I was about to leave, a disturbingly coquettish smile on her face. "Buena suerte, milord."  
  
  
  
She was wishing me luck? It jarred for a second: for an instant I thought it was for what I had planned. It wasn't, of course, it was for the hunt. I looked at Don Ernesto, the crowd, then back at Dona Maria: hedonists, opportunists and murderers. I wasn't the one in need of luck, they were. Not trusting myself to reply, I pulled the horse's head around and headed out, making for the mountains. Once clear of the Hacienda I eased the horses back to a gentle lope. The forest was dense here, partly cultivated plantation, partly natural jungle.  
  
  
  
It was mid afternoon before I found what I was looking for: a place where I could slip off the trail and make a good job of covering any sign of it. I dismounted and led the horses several hundred yards into the forest. The undergrowth was thick enough to make for heavy going. Then I backtracked and carefully removed any clue as to my passage. If my memory was accurate, there was another, faint trail heading back to the Hacienda about two miles through the forest. With the horses it was a struggle pushing my way through to the other trail. I'd have cut them loose, but I needed their speed for the trip back to the Hacienda. It must have taken more than an hour to cover those two miles. Once back in open ground, I remounted, and urged the now flagging Andalucians back towards the Hacienda.  
  
  
  
The Hacienda was all but deserted. As I cautiously led the horses back to the stable block I thought I heard the faint echo of gun fire carry through the thin mountain air. The tactical side of my mind, the side that didn't care about casualties or suffering had taken over and was analysing the situation: worst case scenario, they would all be on their way back now. It was time to find out exactly where Domingo was being held and to free him. The task was easier than I had thought. The scared looking stable boy who had taken our horses on the first day came out to meet me. Fifteen minutes later, he had taken me to the storage cellar where Domingo was being held, eager to betray his ersatz master Don Ernesto.  
  
  
  
There was no one on guard that I could see. I turned to the boy and said quietly: "You go now, muchacho. Get our ponies saddled, we'll be there soon, and thank you."  
  
  
  
"De nada, senor! It is something for me to do, in memory of the real Jefe of this Hacienda, Don Ferdinand who was murdered by that cabron, Lopez. If you choose to oppose him, senor, I will offer prayers for you, that you are successful. Adios!"  
  
  
  
The boy sped off, while I searched around for a key to the store room. Less than a minute later I had the door open and Domingo free.  
  
  
  
"Que pasa? Where is Salvador? Why isn't he.."  
  
  
  
"Sh! I'll explain later. Right now, we have to go through this house and take everything that might be useful, particularly food, weapons and ammunition. Assume anyone you see wants to kill you, and you probably won't be far wrong. Come on, hurry!"  
  
  
  
He clearly was full of questions but heeded the urgency in my voice. I was glad of that: I wanted to be fully equipped for the coming fight, and well clear of the Hacienda before I stopped to explain. I knew that the explanation would take too long. We met in the hallway of the house, both of us carrying supplies from the kitchen as well as blankets. I started looking through the gun rack on the wall. Don Ernesto… no, he'd become just Lopez now, whatever his pretensions to aristocracy, had taken all the worthwhile guns with him following the hunt that was on for Salvador. Ignoring the ancient shotguns that were left, I emptied all the spare ammunition into a borrowed carpet bag. Any I couldn't use in the guns I had with me, I'd dump once we were away from the Hacienda.  
  
  
  
There were five ponies ready when we left the house, two with riding saddles and three with pack saddles. We spent a few minutes loading up the pack saddles with the things we had taken from the house as well as whatever we had been able to find of our own gear. The boy who had helped me was nowhere to be seen. I hoped he had decided to get clear, Ernesto Lopez did not strike me as the forgiving type. When it came down to it, I reflected, neither was I. We had three guns between us, so I took the .318 and a handful of cartridges and gave them to Domingo. He had used a Mauser earlier, and the .318 used the same sort of bolt action as the Mauser. I kept the heavier .470 double ejector for myself as well as the colt automatic.  
  
  
  
We rode for the high country until the sun began to dip behind the mountains. Domingo found a secluded hollow in the rocks that would do for a campsite. It was with considerable relief that I got off the pony. I'd been in the saddle most of the day and ached all over. Domingo saw to the ponies, while I set up camp and got food and coffee ready. The tiny fire, which was all we could risk, did not shed nearly enough heat to counter the bone-deep chill of evenings in the mountains. I could not but appreciate the irony that we were here in the Andes, swathed in blankets woven in Yorkshire from Alpaca wool exported from Peru, and re-exported to Peru from Dickens & Jones of London at great expense.  
  
  
  
"It is time, senor. Tell me about my brother."  
  
  
  
I could sense Domingo looking at me over the fire. I didn't want to tell him about the fate I had consigned his brother to, that his brother had most likely been hunted down and shot like an animal by people who were no better than the jackals that scavenged carcasses on the savannah. I didn't want to tell him, but I did.  
  
  
  
"I'm sorry, Domingo, but I believe that Salvador is dead."  
  
  
  
He was silent awhile, then: "How?"  
  
  
  
It was the question I'd been dreading. I stared into the fire, unable to meet Domingo's gaze. "You know that on that first day when I rode out with Lopez, he had followed me? Lopez led me to a quarry where a number of people whom he described as convicts were working, digging for silver. Salvador told me that he recognised one of the prisoners as his… your father. The evening of the Ball, he went back to try to rescue him. He failed: Lopez's men, perhaps Ramon, captured him. You know that I was trying to convince them that I was on their side? Unsurprisingly, they wanted proof. They ordered me to execute Salvador then and there."  
  
  
  
I paused and looked at Domingo. He was tense, his dark eyes glittering in the firelight, and his hand was curled around the trigger guard of the rifle I had given him. There was a dangerousness about him: it was the sort of implacable enmity that had led to vendettas in Corsica that spanned generations.  
  
  
  
I took a breath and continued. "Instead of offering him a clean death, I arranged for him to be hunted across these mountains. I didn't want his blood on my hands, I thought it might give him a chance, I… It didn't bloody matter, though, for all that I didn't pull the trigger I might just as well have killed him." I couldn't keep the bitter self-recrimination out of my voice. The mess that had arisen was entirely of my own making, and now Salvador was dead. I couldn't have faulted Domingo if he had decided to pull the trigger, but he didn't.  
  
  
  
"Listen to me senor, Juan. My brother is dead. From what you say, he was as much to blame as you, if not more so. When he left last night, he ordered me not to go with him. I should have followed, but I did not, so I too am to blame. Now we have determined that we are all, in some way, to blame, what do we do?" There was a hint of angry sarcasm in his voice, castigating me for my assumption of responsibility for his brother's death. His words returned a sense of purpose to me.  
  
  
  
"We go to the quarry and free everyone who is held there, not just your father, everyone. I think it's about time to start hitting back."  
  
  
  
****  
  
  
  
The next day we were on the move as soon as the sun was up. The quarry was a few miles northward of where we had camped for the night. The left the ponies in some cover, then sneaked forward on foot to check out the situation. It proved to be much as I remembered from my last visit. Luis Ortega was there, lording it over the other guards, as well as the prisoners. Apart from Ortega, I could make out seven more guards, most of them armed with shotguns, but two up on the rim of the quarry had Mauser rifles.  
  
  
  
Domingo and I backed away, and returned to where we had hidden the ponies. To minimise the guards' opportunity to hurt the prisoners, we would have to take them by surprise, shoot them down in cold blood. It was not a task I was looking forward to, but Domingo seemed sanguine enough about the idea. I put my doubts aside and settled down to work out the details. Domingo sketched a diagram of the quarry in the dust, marking in the locations of the prisoners and the seated guards. We studied it for a few minutes.  
  
  
  
"How good a shot are you?" I asked Domingo.  
  
  
  
"Usually sure up to about a hundred and fifty yards, but I don't know this rifle well enough to be as sure as I would have been with my own."  
  
  
  
I nodded, each rifle had its own idiosyncrasies. I had the beginnings of a plan in mind. It would be a gamble, but stood a better chance of success and with fewer incidental casualties than if we just stood off and tried to pick off the guards at long range. It depended on whether or not Lopez knew it had been I who had freed Domingo and if he had informed Ortega of my change in status from being one of his guests. I outlined the plan to Domingo, telling him his part in it. He looked at me as if I was crazy. Perhaps I was, but I felt alive, truly alive for the first time in months.  
  
  
  
****  
  
  
  
An hour or so later, I had tidied myself up as best I could and was riding into the quarry, holding the pony to a casual walk. The colt automatic was loosened and butt forward in its holster at my left hip, the .470 booted, barrel forward, under my left leg.  
  
  
  
"Buenas dias, Senor Ortega!" I shouted, adding a wave to the greeting. Ortega rode forward to meet me, the warm joviality on his features as false as that on my own.  
  
  
  
"Ah, Lord Roxton, how are you this morning? Perhaps you would care to join me for some coffee?"  
  
  
  
"Thank you, I could certainly use a drink. While we drink, perhaps one of your prisoners could check over my pony? I think he's picked up a stone in his off fore."  
  
  
  
"Of course," Ortega replied. I looked over to the group of prisoners until one met my eyes, then I beckoned him to me with an imperious gesture. He trudged over, a sullen expression on his face. I leaned down and pulled up the pony's hoof. The prisoner had leaned over to look at the hoof, searching for some sign of any stone lodged in there and finding nothing: there wasn't any stone, of course, but I needed him to carry word to the others. Before he could say anything, I whispered quickly to him.  
  
  
  
"Pretend to pull out a stone then go back to the other prisoners. Pass the word: when you hear gunfire, get into cover and keep your heads down. We're getting you out of here."  
  
  
  
He said nothing in reply, but kept hold of the hoof and maintained the charade. I hoped he wouldn't accidentally damage the hoof in the process. I'd have need of the pony later. I wandered over to where Ortega was getting the coffee ready. A few minutes later, the prisoner led the pony over to us and tethered him beside Ortega's own horse. The coffee tasted foul but I drank it: I needed to give the guards something to watch while Domingo quietly took out the two carrying the Mausers. All the time that I was drinking, I was listening for some shout of alarm or sign of a scuffle. Nothing. I started to worry if Domingo was even going to bother with his part of the plan. If I started to act with the guards still in place, things would get very uncomfortable, very quickly. It would be a neatly trouble-free way for Domingo to deal with the man responsible for his brother's death.  
  
  
  
I sat there, chatting to Ortega and trying not to grimace too much at the coffee. Then I heard hoof beats approaching. For a moment I thought it might be Domingo, but the sound was that of larger horses than any of ours, drawing near at a fast canter. Ortega rose to meet the group of newcomers as they came into sight.  
  
  
  
My heart sunk as I recognised Ramon at their head.  
  
  
  
  
  
To be continued… 


	5. 5

Ulysses  
  
By Alekto  
  
All notes, disclaimers etc., as for Chapter 1  
  
  
  
Chapter 5  
  
  
  
This was definitely not going to plan, I thought as I watched Ramon and the three others who were with him reining in their horses at Ortega's approach. I had no choice but to assume that the little charade, which I'd been maintaining, was at an end. I glanced around the quarry, mentally noting the locations of the guards I could see. There was a sheer wall at my back that offered me some small amount of cover but simultaneously limited my escape routes if it came down to that.  
  
  
  
I tossed the dregs of the coffee on the fire, put down the cup and walked over to where the horses and my pony were tethered with as much nonchalance as I could muster. My pony at a wiry 14hh was not much smaller than the half dozen or so horses of the guards that were tied to the same hitching rail. I could hear raised voices from the newcomers, Ramon's strident tones amongst them, as I idly checked the knots in the horses' reins.  
  
  
  
"Roxton! Come out and die like a man!" Ramon's harsh voice echoed through the quarry. Looking between the horses' necks I could see him sat astride his horse, the stock of his rifle resting lightly on his right thigh. His men had their weapons out and ready, as did Ortega. An old army adage unconsciously sprang to mind: no plan survives contact with the enemy; this one certainly hadn't. Ramon shouted again, "Roxton, come out you piece of dung!"  
  
  
  
Most of the knots tethering the horses to the rail were loose, easy enough to untie. Ramon's men were starting to approach, but I kept the horses between us giving me cover. The horses began to shift uneasily, picking up on my own tension. I made sure that my own pony was firmly tied, then slipped the automatic out of its holster and fired twice into the air with a wild yell. The horses, already spooked, were off and running within seconds. Their panic spread to the other horses whose riders were suddenly hard pressed to stay in the saddle. Two of the quarry guards were near me and on foot. I took them out with my next three shots.  
  
  
  
The rest of the guards got over their brief shock and I had to dive for cover as they started to return fire. Impacting bullets tore up shards of rock and plumes of dust; some barely inches away from me. There were only three shots left in the Colt as I turned to fire at another guard. I pulled the trigger and heard a dull click. Jammed. Damn! I tried pulling the slide a couple of times to clear the blockage, but it didn't work. Some sixth sense made me look up to see Ortega watching my actions, an ugly smirk on his face. He had seen what had happened and stalked arrogantly toward me, clearly intent on savouring the moment. Behind him I could see riders being carried out of the quarry on panic-stricken horses. Ramon was clinging tenaciously onto the shoulder of his own horse, his rifle dropped in the effort to keep his seat.  
  
  
  
Ortega came nearer, his sawn-off, pistol-gripped shotgun held loosely at his side, an atavistic smile crawling across his face. My own gun was useless, so I threw it at him, then lunged sideways in the direction of my pony. Ortega easily dodged the thrown handgun, but it gave me the time I'd needed to drag the .470 from its boot. His smile turned sickly as I lined the rifle at him and pulled the front trigger. I'd killed some of the biggest, most dangerous game that Africa had to offer with that rifle, up to and including elephant. Its effect on a human target at close range was horrific, appalling. He was dead before he hit the ground. The heavy bullet continued its flight clipping Ramon's surviving cohort in the side. It was enough to throw him from his already skittish horse. He hit the ground close to where some of the prisoners had been hiding. A group of them broke cover and swarmed all over him; I saw fists rise and fall, striking down with unrepentant savagery. I couldn't find it in myself to condemn them.  
  
  
  
From the rim of the quarry I heard the wonderfully familiar bark of a .318, its sharp report more resonant that the lighter crack of the Mausers the guards were using. Another guard fell, and the rest fled as best they could. Ramon finally lost his battle to stay mounted as his horse reared, overbalanced and rolled over on to him. After a few wild kicks, it unsteadily regained its feet and cantered out of the quarry. I walked over to Ramon, covering him with the rifle. The crowd of prisoners moved over towards us, fresh blood staining some of the rags they were dressed in. They formed a loose circle around Ramon and me. The expression on their faces was disturbingly familiar, a hunger for blood and vengeance that was as yet unassuaged, unabated; they wanted someone to pay for what they had suffered. Atrocity in the heat of battle I could understand, if not approve of. During the war I had seen the kind of things that sheer terror could drive a man to do, things repellent to the civilised majority who had never been placed in that position.  
  
  
  
A rock flew out from the crowd and struck Ramon on the side of his face, followed by a savage, jeering roar. It didn't take a genius to sense their mood: they wanted to tear him apart. I couldn't be party to that level of cold-blooded murder, and besides, I had my own plans for Ramon. I took a couple of steps forward, shouting out to be heard over the din. "Wait! Listen to me!" They quietened, waiting for me to speak.  
  
  
  
Ramon opened his mouth to say something, but one of the prisoners casually backhanded him across the face. "Be silent, Cabron!" He took the hint and shut up.  
  
  
  
I gazed around at the gathered crowd as they waited for me to speak. On each of them were the signs of the privations that they had suffered. For how long, I had no way of knowing. I recalled the opulence and excess of the party that Lopez had thrown to celebrate my arrival. The comparison made me angry, both at him as well as with myself. I had freed the people working at the quarry, but I knew they could not be the only ones trapped by Lopez's greed, kidnapped from their homes and forced to work for him as slave labour. My conscience refused to allow me to stand by and just observe that level of injustice, but if I was going to wage war on 'Don' Ernesto Lopez, I was going to do it properly.  
  
  
  
A curious sense of formality took me as I spoke to Ramon. "Take this message to Ernesto Lopez and to all who would stand with him. Tell him this: I offer him fair warning that from this day forward I have taken a stand against him and against all who would support him. Every indignity, every outrage that he and his men have visited upon these people, I will return upon you tenfold. I will destroy all that you have built by the blood and sweat of others, and in the end I will beat you into the dust. By your actions you have sinned against the laws of God and Man. Man's law cannot reach you, but I will be the instrument of God's vengeance, and from that there is no escape! Now, go!" I cannot begin to pretend that I knew where the last melodramatic comments had come from, but they seemed to have a reassuringly salutary effect. I had intended more a declaration of war than a quasi-religious oath of vengeance, but my anger had again got the better of me. It was proving to be a bad habit, and might one day get me into trouble - more trouble than I was currently in, that is.  
  
  
  
Ramon left as Domingo came down from the rim of the quarry. I left him and his father to their tearful reunion and the sharing of the less welcome news of Salvador's death. I went back over to my pony, replaced the bullet that I'd fired and returned the rifle to its boot. Then I retrieved the Colt automatic and settles down to clear the jam. The former prisoners busied themselves unlocking manacles and scavenging what they could from the things left around the quarry by the guards. I was left notably alone.  
  
  
  
Within half an hour we were ready to leave. Everyone knew that the guards who had escaped, to say nothing of Ramon, would be returning with reinforcements as soon as they could muster them. A few Mausers and shotguns with scarcely a handful of ammunition between them in the hands of willing, but untrained hands would not be enough to withstand a concerted attack. From the way that Domingo was looking at me, I knew that the same thought had occurred to him. I beckoned him to one side.  
  
  
  
"Can you get them to Chalhuanco Alto?" I asked. He returned my stare with a level, confident gaze and I could not help but think that in the space of less than a day he had grown up and abandoned his previous obduracy. The death of a brother could do that, I thought sadly.  
  
  
  
"I will see them safe, Juan, my word on it, and what of you: what will you do now that you have issued this challenge?"  
  
  
  
"The first order of business is to get these people safely away from here. We both know Lopez or Ramon will have men on our trail soon. This is rough country. One man with a rifle can hold off any pursuers, give you time to get clear and into the mountains."  
  
  
  
"It is possible for one man, but easier with two. I will stay with you."  
  
  
  
"No. I need you to go with them. There's no way of knowing if you'll encounter any trouble on the path, and for all their determination, they wouldn't stand much of a chance." Domingo nodded with reluctant acquiescence. I appreciated the offer, though; shooting people down at long range, giving them no chance to fight back, was no more than slaughter when the sniper was as good as I was. The idea made me sick to the stomach: I couldn't, wouldn't ask anyone else to do something like that.  
  
  
  
The column of former prisoners left the quarry, making for the rough country that led up to the mountains. We had rounded up what horses we could and the weakest of the refugees rode them. I kept my own pony and gave the pack ponies to Domingo along with the .318. I needed to keep the load as light as possible but couldn't afford the inconvenience of having to look after a pack pony. My gear was pared down to rifle, handgun, knife, and spare ammunition as well as survival basics. This was no longer a jaunt through the mountains; it had become what I had hoped never to experience again - war.  
  
  
  
I spent the next couple of hours familiarising myself with the area surrounding the quarry, the hiding places, the fields of fire and the escape routes. One of the prisoners had found a box containing nine sticks of dynamite. He had given it to Domingo who had in turn entrusted it to me. I packed six of the sticks in the pony's saddlebags and kept three on me. The leather hoops sewn onto my belt were all full with the four-inch long cartridges for the .470; the two spare magazines for the Colt were in my pockets, and the dynamite in a satchel slung across my body. By the time the expected reinforcements arrived, I was ready for them. The sun was dipping in the sky by the time I heard the hoof beats marking the approach of horsemen. I had positioned myself across from the entrance to the quarry with the sun at my back. My pony was tethered in a hollow a few hundred yards behind where I was lying for them. There were two, perhaps three hours of daylight left. It would be a long time to have to keep them busy.  
  
  
  
The entrance to the quarry was across open ground, a rubble-strewn slope punctuated by a handful of stunted trees and small grassy hummocks. The nearest cover worth the name was more than fifty yards away on each side. My current position was vulnerable to being flanked but it would take time: time that I could use. The first group of four riders came into sight. They moved cautiously, guns at the ready. I didn't recognise any of them. I could see others behind them; more than I had envisaged having to fight at one go. I fired twice in rapid succession; the first two tumbled from their horses. I rolled back into cover as shots were returned, breaking open the rifle and reloading.  
  
  
  
The next minutes crawled by like hours. The focus of my reality had shifted back into a grim repetition of fire, reload then move position. Some of those I'd hit I knew I only wounded, but even a wound from that huge rifle was enough to put a man down. The sticks of dynamite had been lit, and then thrown, discouraging any thoughts of a mass frontal attack. I had not got through the skirmish unscathed: a sliver of rock, spalled through a near miss from a boulder I'd been hiding behind, had caught me in the head, cutting a deep gash across my forehead which ran back into the hair. It bled copiously, as head wounds always did, the blood running down my face and getting into my eye, blurring my vision. I was limping badly as well, courtesy of having twisted my ankle during a hurried relocation from a position that had suddenly become very uncomfortable.  
  
  
  
Then the fighting lulled. Dead and wounded littered the canyon floor, the all too familiar aftermath of battle. My head was throbbing mercilessly now, as was my abused and overworked ankle. Looking down on them I felt the stirrings of repulsion at the carnage I had wrought. The reasons behind it were so different from the arcane web of political guarantees that had dragged Europe and later the world into war back in 1914, but the dead were still dead, and still at my hand. I was sick of the killing, sick of the pressures of conscience and duty that had driven me to it and then castigated me for it afterwards.  
  
  
  
I looked again, seeing not the dead but the quarry and the discarded manacles thrown down by the freed prisoners. Others were suffering and wallowing in self-pity was a luxury I could not afford. Behind me the sun was resting on the peaks of the mountains, casting long dark shadows across the quarry. The still night air carried the sounds of a distant heated discussion mixed in with the moans and cries of the wounded.  
  
  
  
Moving gingerly, I levered myself to my feet and started to hobble towards where I'd left the pony. I had to cling onto an outcropping for support as a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over me. My ankle had swollen and the muscles around had stiffened. Getting the boot off would be difficult at best. The bleeding from the gash on my head had slowed to a dribble, but the hair on the left side of my head was matted with dried blood so I carried my hat instead. When I reached the pony, it was an effort to boot the rifle and get into the saddle. The pounding in my head was exacerbated by every step. Whether it was from concussion, shock or reaction I didn't know. I was suddenly thankful to be riding a 14hh pony rather than my 17hh hunter back in the stables at Avebury. I nudged the pony's flanks, "come on, Robbie." Robbie? What was Mister Robinson doing in South America?  
  
  
  
My mind drifted with the pony's steady gait, back to the circle of stones at Avebury and the old, tubby pony I had ridden as a child. Some instinct kept me in the saddle as Robbie put some distance between the quarry and us. Sometime later that night I slipped from the saddle. I didn't remember hitting the ground.  
  
  
  
  
  
To be continued… 


	6. 6

Ulysses  
  
By Alekto  
  
All notes, disclaimers etc., as for Chapter 1  
  
Extra thanks to Jo for relating to me in excruciating detail the all too unpleasant effects a severe head injury can have on a person. Thanks, Jo - just what I wanted to read right before lunch!  
  
  
  
Chapter 6  
  
  
  
The struggle back to consciousness was an all too familiar experience: the disorientation, the dawning awareness and then the pain. Vague memories of fighting and danger and running swam to the surface of my mind, bringing with them the panic of helplessness. I felt a gentle, insistent pressure on my chest; heard a quiet, gentlemanly, English voice murmuring to me as if from far away, "Rest easy my boy, don't try to move." I heeded the voice and sank back into the darkness.  
  
  
  
Awareness drifted into a confused disjointed nightmare. Long unwanted memories twisted and merged into a fever-ridden collage of my own personal hell. I was there, running through viscid mud on legs leaden from fatigue. I saw the rows of pallid, dead-eyed men, clad in rags, squatting in fetid slurry, clutching rifles, waiting for the rain to ease so the artillery could begin; caught my own reflection, frozen in a shard of broken mirror - as grey skinned and dead-eyed as all the rest. Clouds hanging low and heavy over a wasteland disgorged endless torrents of rain that did little to clear the air of the acrid miasma of filth, cordite and death. Machine gun fire scythed through hundreds with all the emotionless efficiency of a reaper cutting through a field of corn. An anguished howl of denial, lost and primeval, rent the air; I saw bodies of allies, colleagues, and friends lying where they had fallen, rotting in the mud. I looked down at the same mud, at skeletal arms hung with skeins of flesh reaching up, tearing at me, and dragging me down into the morass. The mud churned as I tried to struggle clear, crawling up my body. I stumbled and fell, hands reached up from beneath me and pulled me under. Now, as then, I couldn't escape.  
  
  
  
I heard the same voice whisper in my ear, like a soothing balm, somehow far- off yet close-by all at the same time. "Don't be afraid John. I have you. You're safe now. Sleep. I'll watch over you until you wake." The mud, the fear and the horror were gone as I relaxed into the calmness the voice offered. I tried to look around to see who was speaking but somehow knew it wasn't important. I sank into a deep, comfortable sleep.  
  
  
  
I don't know how much later it was that I awoke again. I knew that I had to open my eyes, that it was an important thing to do. In my time, I'd fought in the most devastating war that Europe had ever seen, climbed mountains and hunted the most dangerous game the world had to offer. Somehow, forcing my eyes open rivalled them all for difficulty. What I saw was not worth the effort it had taken. Everything was blurred, as if swathed in cotton wool or cobwebs. I frowned, concentrating, trying to drag the world into focus through sheer willpower. The stab of pain through my head quickly, if temporarily, convinced me that clarity was over rated.  
  
  
  
Thinking about it, I faintly recalled the voice, talking to me through the remembered terror of my own nightmares, leading me home. I retained wits enough to reason that wherever I was, I wasn't alone. "Hel…Hello?" Was that really my voice? It sounded so weak, so fragile.  
  
  
  
"Welcome back to the land of the living, John." Yes, that was the voice I'd heard, gentle, paternal even. How had he known my name? Memory of the events in the quarry finally slipped into place, and with them renewed panic. Apart from Domingo, the only people who knew who I was were those who were hunting me. The need to see became suddenly far more compelling. I rubbed my face, blinking back the relentless pressure pounding behind my eyes, and with a convulsive effort dragged myself on my side, propping myself up on one elbow to look in the direction of the voice.  
  
  
  
For a few seconds my sight cleared and outlined in the entrance of a cave I could make out a man. He was stocky, perhaps in his late fifties or early sixties, with white hair and a neatly trimmed white beard though I couldn't clearly make out his face. He looked back at me as if sensing my scrutiny. He took the pipe, which he had been smoking from his mouth, and smiled wryly, even sadly back at me. "You never were a very good patient, John. Sleep now. You're through the worst of it. I'll see you again, in just a little while." He put his hat on and started to amble out of the cave into the mist that swirled outside.  
  
  
  
"W.. Wait, who are you? Where are you going?" I listened for an answer, but none came. The brief spurt of energy which had enabled me to prop myself up was fading fast. I slumped back down, gasping in pain and exhaustion as a fresh wave of nausea swept over me. The head injury must have been worse than I thought.  
  
  
  
****  
  
  
  
"Juan! Juan, wake up! Please wake up!" I didn't need to open my eyes to recognise Domingo's voice or to hear the worry and concern it held.  
  
  
  
"I'm awake," I grumbled. My head was aching less than it had been which was a definite improvement. I levered open an eye. The accompanying pain was less than I'd anticipated so I took a chance and opened the other. A couple of seconds of focusing and I could make out Domingo crouched next to me, a damp bloodstained rag in his hand. "Where's the old English gentleman gone?"  
  
  
  
Domingo shook his head in confusion. "There is no one here apart from you and me. I only found this place a few hours ago after searching for you for three days."  
  
  
  
Three days? It couldn't be. I couldn't have been out for that long. It just wasn't possible. "Where's Robbie?" I said, trying to pull my thoughts back together. I noticed the renewed confusion on Domingo's face matched by an apparently growing concern for my sanity. "Robbie: the pony," I explained, "I decided to call the pony Robbie."  
  
  
  
His relief that I was not completely delusional was almost tangible. "Robbie is here. Once I have seen to your injuries, I will see to him." The next hour was spent cleaning out and treating the gash on my head, then bandaging it. We had no means to stitch it so I knew that it would scar badly, but at least hidden by the hair no one would be able to notice it. Domingo had some sulfa powder with him, which he dusted the wound with, to help fight any infection. Getting the boot off from my twisted ankle proved difficult, not to mention painful, but eventually we managed it. I rotated the joint experimentally, wincing as I did so. It wasn't broken, but after the way I'd abused it during the skirmish at the quarry it would benefit from a couple of days' rest.  
  
  
  
Domingo rode out after he had done what he could to bring back enough supplies to keep us going for a few days. The weather had shifted back into a bitingly cold reminder of winter high in the Andes. While unpleasant, it did mean that the searchers would be at least as hindered by the weather as we were. We stayed holed up in the cave for several more days. The agony in my head subsided into a dull, persistent ache. With my ankle strapped I could walk, albeit slowly and with a limp.  
  
  
  
I examined the entrance of the cave the first morning I'd been able to get up, looking for any trace of the old man but found nothing: any tracks or sign that he had been there had been obscured by Domingo's passage. I thought back but couldn't bring to mind his face, just his voice. He'd said that he would see me again. I wondered how he had been so certain of that fact. It was perplexing. When I'd told Domingo about it, he just shrugged. I could sense that he had decided to chalk it down to delirium. Lacking any proof beyond my own tangled memories, I felt I might as well do the same. Perhaps in time I would remember how I had got to the cave, when the last thing I could recall with any certainty was sliding from Robbie's back on a mountain trail.  
  
  
  
****  
  
  
  
Four days after he had found me, Domingo and I were sitting around the small fire eating dinner. I'd spent the afternoon cleaning the rifles and my own handgun as well as getting things ready for the next day when I was leaving. For the time I had been ill, Domingo had been my eyes and ears, riding the area and noting the locations of any of Lopez's men. Since the ambush I'd sprung on them at the quarry, they had become distinctly more chary about riding out.  
  
  
  
Opposite me Domingo was carving off and chewing slivers of paprika-spiced chorizo, occasionally offering pieces to me. "What will you do now, Juan?" he asked.  
  
  
  
It was a good question, and one I'd been asking myself many times over the past few days. I had a fair idea of how the rubber industry, from which Lopez drew most of his income, worked. I knew that in the vast estate that Lopez claimed for his own there would be captive villages, set up to house the enslaved workers: forest Indians kidnapped from the local tribes - the Huitoto, the Andoke, the Zarribos and the Chunchos amongst too many others. Unlike Domingo's people, the mountain dwelling Cholos, they were not by nature particularly bellicose, which meant that trying to start a rising would be unlikely to succeed. Tactically, that left me with just one option: "Lopez. He's the key." And his sister, but I was at a loss there as to what to do. I couldn't begin to contemplate killing a woman, however despicable. It just wasn't… right.  
  
  
  
Domingo just looked at me. I didn't know whether he had been half expecting that answer or whether he had gained better control over his emotions in recent days, but his face was expressionless. He sliced off another piece of chorizo and handed it to me. "The people you rescued from the quarry heard what you said to Ramon. The stories of the battle you fought afterwards, alone against them, have been told in villages for miles around. Lopez and Ramon both tried to stop the survivors from talking, but many did. I do not know what did happen there, but I went back today and saw enough to know that the stories being told are not as outrageous as they sound. You did more than just free some prisoners and kill some pelados that day; you showed people that they could be beaten. You gave them hope." He grinned as I reddened in embarrassment, then continued speaking, enjoying my discomfort. "The stories give you a new name. They call you El Mayal del Dios!"  
  
  
  
The… something of the Lord. It took a few moments to dredge up the unfamiliar word from my memory, then I had it: the Flail of the Lord. It seemed that someone back in the quarry had taken my statement to Ramon about beating him and his men into the dust literally. I was as discomposed by the grandiose epithet as Domingo had guessed I would be. It seemed far too much to live up to. I sighed; these people had placed their hopes in me, trusting that I would be able to help them. It was a responsibility I had not wanted, the kind of responsibility that I had never wanted, but now I had accepted it I wasn't about to let them down. From what Domingo had said, they had nowhere else left to turn.  
  
  
  
"Lopez's men are beginning to say that you have fled from here, or that you are dead," Domingo said. "The people want to believe the stories, though. When I was back in Chalhuanco Alto picking up supplies, I heard that Lopez's men had raided several of the nearby villages. They beat anyone who spoke of El Mayal del Dios. Ramon swore that he would cut out your heart and eat it!"  
  
  
  
I looked at him while he spoke, considering his words and thinking on what I knew of Lopez and his men. Throughout history, there were records of oppressed people who had been pushed just a little bit too far. People with nothing left to live for made the most implacable of enemies. Many would-be conquerors had discovered that too late and had lost to rebellions of their own making. Lopez had pushed these people too far now, and the Cholos were not a people to meekly submit. He had provided me with the allies and support I would need to prosecute the war I had started.  
  
  
  
The first order of business was to get supply caches set up so I could travel fast and light. That would take time - time I would need to fully recover, because the next time I went out, I wasn't going to bother with underlings. I was going straight for 'Don' Ernesto Lopez himself.  
  
  
  
  
  
To be continued… 


	7. 7

Ulysses  
  
By Alekto  
  
All notes, disclaimers etc., as for Chapter 1  
  
  
  
Chapter 7  
  
  
  
It was more than two weeks since the skirmish at the quarry when I decided that it was time to put into action the plans I had been working on for Lopez. The intensity of the search for me was finally beginning to die down, partly I believed because of the rumours that had begun to circulate that my corpse had been found at the bottom of a ravine. It was a useful rumour, and one that had been carefully promulgated by Domingo at my suggestion. I did feel uncomfortable deceiving the villagers who had placed such faith in me, but given the odds, I needed whatever sort of advantage I could muster against Lopez and his men. If they had become complacent because of my supposed demise, if, when they saw me, they believed me to be a ghost then so much the better.  
  
  
  
Robbie, my pony, had benefited from the rest. Like most ponies, he possessed a canniness seldom seen in their larger cousins. In my escape from the quarry when I had been wounded, it had largely been he who had found the trail and brought me to the cave where I had eventually woken up. There was no other reasonable explanation for it that he had found so perfect a hiding place was little short of miraculous. Looking at the unprepossessing pony, I sometimes found myself wondering at the old infantry joke about the cavalry as to the cavalryman's horse having the brains of the partnership.  
  
  
  
I started out late in the evening so that by the time I reached the more regularly patrolled area near to the house I would have the advantage of darkness. The gibbous moon hanging low in the sky provided ample illumination for the sure-footed Robbie to pick his way along the rough paths. In the chill of night the pony's breath condensed on the wind in billowing spurts, lit a ghostly silver in the moonlight. The only sounds were the rhythmic pad of unshod hooves, the creak of leather and the faint jangle of harness. We made good time and met no one on the trail. By the time the moon set, I had Robbie tethered in a copse in the garden while I inched forward on foot.  
  
  
  
Unlike last time, there were few guards around, and those that I could see were gathered in a huddle smoking and chatting. It was almost an invitation and part of my mind was screaming 'trap' with clear reason. I crouched down thinking frantically. I was carrying a knife, handgun and what was left of the dynamite against whatever might be planned for me in the house. The rational, tactical side of my mind was urging me to leave, to pull back and come up with another plan, but having come so far I wanted to finish what I had started.  
  
  
  
Slinking from shadow to shadow I made my way around to the back of the house to the entrance to the storage cellar where I had found Domingo more than two weeks earlier. I had managed to time it well: the first shimmers of grey dawn were lightening the eastern horizon as I slipped quietly down the stairs under the house. There were no prisoners there now, no lights burned and no sign of anyone. At the foot of the stairs I waited for a few seconds, listening, alert for any sound that did not belong. Nothing. I had been lucky so far. Now there was just one problem, one dangerous little problem: I needed light to see, and if anyone was lying in wait it would be an excellent way of advertising my presence and exact location. I reached into my pocket for my lighter. The familiar shape fitted easily into my hand. I flicked down with my thumb to ignite the flame. The simple act of using a lighter did not normally make my heart pound, but that night it certainly did. As the wavering orange flame illuminated the corrideor, I half expected to hear gunfire or voices ordering my surrender. The continuing silence was almost anti-climatic. I'd got away with it - so far.  
  
  
  
I moved through the subterranean corridors as quietly as I could, ready to pause at the slightest noise. I used the lighter as sparingly as I could. A candle or oil lamp would have been far more effective but far slower to dowse, so I made do with the dim light from the lighter. After about half an hour, I found a solid wooden door at the end of a corridor that I gauged would lead me directly under the main spine wall of the house. I was no engineer, but it seemed like the ideal place to put the small amount of dynamite that I had so it would do the optimum amount of damage. A heavy iron key was already in the lock. Personal experience as a child sneaking around the great house at Avebury had taught me just how noisy such locks could be, but I had little choice really. I made sure the gun was loose in its holster then took hold of the key and twisted slowly. The mechanism had, at least, been kept oiled so moved easily. The lock finally opened with a dull 'thunk' that echoed through the silent corridor. I waited again but still heard nothing. Something was definitely wrong. Even so early in the morning there should have been several servants about making preparations for the day, but there was no hint of movement from the house above. In a way it was a relief. I wanted to destroy Lopez's base of operations, not kill people who were unfortunate to be employed by him. Still, the continuing silence was making me uneasy.  
  
  
  
I was too committed to the job I had set out to do to stop now, so I pulled open the heavy door and flicked on the lighter. The door opened on to a small landing at the top of a shallow flight of stairs. At the limits of the light I could make out racks holding hundreds of wine bottles. For a brief instant I was back in Rio as my old friend was sampling wines at his favourite vintners: Don Ferdinand had been a true connoisseur. I looked at the cellar it had taken him a lifetime to amass, wines that would grace any table in London. It seemed a crime to destroy it, but it was necessary. I pushed the heavy door closed behind me and went down the steps. On a table at the base of the steps was an oil lamp, which I lit, trimming it to give the minimum light I would need to set up the explosives.  
  
  
  
There was just one small problem which I had been wrestling with since I had evolved the plan of using the explosives to destroy the hacienda: the fuses. Between the fracas at the quarry and my subsequent nightmarish escape I had very little fuse wire left, I guessed not much more than a minute's worth. Here, in Don Ferdinand's exquisitely stocked cellar I found the perfect, if bizarre, answer to my problem. I could set a fire, using spirits as an accelerant, and rely on the fire to light the fuse after I had left. It was probably the most sacrilegious use that I could think of for 1800 Napoleon Brandy. Determined to do it properly I tucked the explosives against what I hoped was the appropriate wall and packed around them with heavy cases to direct as much of the explosion into the wall. Then I broke open several of the bottles of brandy and emptied the contents on a pile of old packing cases. As I did so, I noticed a small desk in one corner of the room with ledgers resting on it: Don Ferdinand's cellar records. I walked over and searched for the set of glasses I knew would be there also. I found one and tipped out a measure of the last bottle of the Napoleon into it.  
  
  
  
Everything was finally ready. I lit a brandy soaked rag wrapped around a piece of packing case and, once it was burning well, threw it into the now highly inflammable pile of debris I had gathered. As the flames rose, I lifted my glass to Don Ferdinand's memory and murmured, "Good bye, old friend, I'm glad you're not around to see this," then downed the contents in one mouthful. It wasn't the way to drink that deliciously smooth Napoleon, but under the circumstances it had felt appropriate.  
  
  
  
Turning to leave I noticed a rectangle of light where the heavy door had been closed. Silhouetted there were three figures: two men holding rifles pointed at me, and a woman. They had me dead to rights. Behind me I was all too conscious of the fire blazing ever closer to the dynamite.  
  
  
  
The woman stepped forward to the top of the landing and gazed down at me. It was 'Dona' Maria, dressed in a flowing white night gown. Her coal black hair, thick and luxuriant, cascaded around her shoulders. Looking more closely I could make out blood spatters on the pristine white, but more obvious still was the nickel plated .25 held in her hand pointed nonchalantly in my direction. Despite myself, I coughed a couple of times, the smoke from the fire I had started was beginning to make it difficult to breathe, but neither she nor her cohorts appeared to notice. She merely offered me a smile, ingenuous, alluring and utterly insane. "So very pleasant to see you again, Lord Roxton. We really must stop meeting like this you know or people will talk."  
  
  
  
However innocuous her words might have been, they didn't alter the aim of the little automatic in her hand. It remained completely steady. This was not, I reflected, a good way to start a day.  
  
  
  
  
  
To be concluded… 


	8. 8

Ulysses  
  
By Alekto  
All notes, disclaimers etc., as for Chapter 1  
  
  
Chapter 8  
  
  
Time seemed to stretch out as I stared transfixed down the bore of the neat little automatic she held in her hand. It wasn't that the experience of staring down a gun barrel was a novel experience: it was that this was the first time that the finger on the trigger belonged to a madwoman. I have to say it wasn't often that I froze in such situations, but then, in that cellar, was most definitely one of the exceptions. I was dimly aware of the ever growing heat of the fire pressing at my back as it neared the hidden dynamite, the threat it posed mitigated by the more immediate danger of the gun. A thick, ever-lowering fug of smoke roiled between the ceiling beams like a living thing, hungrily searching for sustenance. Then, after an age, the tableau was broken. She gave a harsh, brittle, humourless laugh and stepped backwards through the door. Her escort followed and I heard the heavy 'clunk' of the ancient lock imprisoning me in the blazing cellar that looked like becoming my tomb.  
  
  
I turned quickly to check the progress of the fire towards where I'd placed the dynamite - still about twenty feet away - I had only a few minutes grace, but still I dithered a few seconds. Should I move the explosives or just try to get out? At the rate the fire was spreading, I guessed I had no more than five minutes before the flames reached the fuse, but it was enough time to see if I could get out. I ran up the steps and tried the door. As expected, it was immovable. Thoughts raced through my mind - was there any way to force the lock or the hinges? Perhaps shoot it out? A quick scan of the door showed it to be far too solid for any such options to work. I'd need a cannon to get through that door by brute force.  
  
  
Being up on the stairs had brought me closer to the smoke. I coughed, feeling the acrid stab at the back of my throat and the increasing pressure that was wrenching at my chest with every breath. I pressed my handkerchief over my nose and mouth. It helped, but not much. I reeled back down the stairs suddenly wondering if it wasn't better to leave the dynamite in place. If I was going to die here, letting the explosive go off would at least be quicker than being burned to death. The fire was growing faster than I had originally estimated. The flames were licking across the ceiling between the beams as if they were feeding on the dense smoke. Ash and embers floated down, searing my skin where they touched, lost and ignored in the greater heat radiating from the fire. Unable to help myself I slumped to my knees, coughing and retching uncontrollably. The edges of my vision were beginning to become grey and hazy as I struggled to breathe the noxious air.  
  
  
On the floor in front of me I noticed a bottle of wine that had rolled free of its rack, glowing pale and golden in the firelight: Chateau d'Yquem, the best wine of Sauternes, rich, fragrant and able to age for decades. Involuntarily I recalled a comment of Don Ferdinand's from long ago: 'we have a long-standing family tradition, John. When everything's gone to Hell, we know we can always find a way out through the Sauternes'. The way he'd said it had been as a joke that I hadn't understood. I looked around for the rack where the Sauternes had been stored, a faint spark of hope blossoming that I might be able to get out. Don Ferdinand had mentioned that his house had been built with secret passages for the convenience of a long dead ancestor whose frequent and not always secret assignations had passed into family legend. I was praying that taking that with the Sauternes comment I was putting two and two together and ending up with something resembling four.  
  
  
A few seconds of searching brought me to the alcove where the Sauternes was stored. A few more seconds of frantic, half blind scrabbling located a casually hidden lever. I glanced around - the fire was licking at the pile of debris I had stacked around the explosive to direct the blast into the wall. I was pretty much out of time. I jiggled the lever around with an urgency born of desperation, trying to work out which direction it should be moved in, and praying with unaccustomed fervour that the mechanism still worked.  
  
  
Another bout of coughing almost doubled me over, my eyes were smarting, tears streaming down my face, and every breath was agony. I finally felt the lever slide and a part of the rack holding the Sauternes swing away from the wall. I staggered through pulling the rack closed behind me. The air in the tunnel must have been stale and musty, but to me it was as sweet as an Alpine meadow. I couldn't delay, though. I could only guess how much longer remained before the dynamite went off, but I was sure it could only be seconds.  
  
  
The tunnel was dark but to go back for a lamp would have been rank stupidity. I took the next best option and once again my lighter flared into life and I could see where I was going. The tunnel wound round a corner then led to a steep wooden stair that seemed to end in a blank panel that was outlined on three sides with the glow of light. By now I was running on nothing more tangible than adrenaline and determination, and I knew it couldn't last. My hands were shaking as I climbed the stairs and reached for the release mechanism that I knew had to be there. Somehow I managed to trip it and the panel swung open. I scrambled through and closed it behind me, idly noting that it was a life size painting of some caballero in Eighteenth century dress. I recognised the surroundings as the house's drawing room.  
  
  
Smoke was billowing up through the floor in mute testimony to the inferno below. The adrenaline rush was fading fast as I stumbled out to the main hall. The front doors stood inviting and open, beckoning me to safety. I mustered up what little strength I had left and broke into an unsteady run. The darkness was closing in again at the edges of my vision. I was so tired, I just wanted to find somewhere cool and lie down to sleep. The instinct for survival that had spurred me through dangers in the past, now pushed me onward. To give in to the darkness was the cowards' way out; however much easier it would be.  
  
  
It was with sheer relief that I dragged myself through the open doorway. I could hardly see and to breathe was torment, but I'd managed to escape! A few more faltering steps forward, I tripped and fell. My mind was muzzy as I peered myopically back to see what I had tripped on. I stared in dull incomprehension at the corpse I'd fallen over. It was 'Don' Ernesto Lopez, lying as if asleep, unmarred except for the tiny, neat bullet hole on his forehead, the kind of bullet hole that a .25 calibre would make...   
  
  
I don't know how long I sat there in a blank stupor, still gasping for every breath, before I heard the unforgettable sound of a gun being cocked close by. "Buenos dias, senor Lord John Roxton, you do not know how glad I am that you escaped."  
  
  
My oxygen starved mind was still fogged with pain and confusion, slow to process the information and realise the threat. I blinked and my vision cleared sufficiently as I looked up into the sneering face behind the gun and recognised Ramon. "Oh Hell," I murmured. Then, as if in sympathy to my sentiment, the house blew up.   
  
  
I was thankfully sitting on the ground and it was not too great a chore to take advantage of the minimal cover provided by Lopez's supine form. Ramon was less fortunate: the shockwave knocked him off his feet. Huddled in the scant cover that had been available, I could feel myself frowning in confusion: the scale of the explosion was entirely out of proportion with the meagre amount of dynamite I'd had access to. Something else must have gone up as well, God knew what, but whatever it was it more than did the job. The detritus that had once been part of the house began to rain heavily down on us: fragments of tile, brick and glass and other, less immediately identifiable objects.   
  
  
Another surge of adrenaline was beginning to kick in, fooling my body into believing that I hadn't just escaped from a fire, that it could suddenly breathe again, that near suffocation was no more than a passing inconvenience. I was all too aware of how few reserves I had left, that adrenaline apart I was having real trouble getting enough oxygen in the thin mountain air. I knew that if I was to stand a chance of taking Ramon down, it had to be quickly or not at all. He too was recovering from the shock of the explosion but the gun which had been in his hand was no longer there. He ignored its absence, took a couple of steps forward and with casual brutality kicked my side as I was struggling to get to my feet. The savage force behind the blow was enough to lift me off the ground. My vision darkened to a fractal swirl of grey and black as my side flared in pain. I desperately tried to continue to roll away from him but I was too busy trying to drag in another breath. He kicked again, but the pain was somehow less than before, as if from further away. I could feel myself drifting away into unconsciousness, or worse.  
  
  
"And so it ends, the great White Hunter grovelling in the dust like the spineless peon he truly is. Dona Maria should have stayed for this. It's pitiful! Such a big man with a gun in your hands, but without it, you're nothing. Where's your superiority and arrogance now?" I let him rant on. It was giving me the time I needed to catch a breath and gather myself for one last attempt at... something, anything. Ramon continued regardless, "El Mayal del Dios! Hah! Perhaps I should keep you alive until we can work out some way of killing you so as to give those superstitious peasants the object lesson they so richly deserve."  
  
  
He reached down and hauled me to my feet by the collar. We were of a height, his face barely inches from my own, his stench in my nostrils, his victorious sneer revealing teeth yellowed and rotting. Out of his sight I eased my knife silently from its sheath and with the last of my strength buried it to its hilt in his chest. Confusion crossed his features as his grip on my shirt relented, then his face relaxed into the slack flaccidity of death. "Ramon, you talk too much," I muttered as he collapsed to the ground. I made it no more than a few paces further before my own legs gave out and I folded into an inelegant heap.  
  
  
I'm not sure how long I lay there, but when I had gathered enough strength to move the sun was high overhead. Behind me the house had long since collapsed in on itself, Don Ferdinand's usurped legacy now no more than a smouldering ruin. Tears that had nothing to do with the fire pricked at my eyes. My old friend had deserved better than this. In front of me lay the rapidly cooling corpses of two of the people who had engineered his death and terrorised an entire region. If Ramon's words were anything to go by, the third, Dona Maria had escaped. She was perhaps the most dangerous, the leader of their little cabal, possessed of all the delicate femininity of a black widow.  
  
  
I stood up, albeit unsteadily, and made my way back to the copse where I had tethered Robbie. He looked at me in the oddly knowing way he had apparently developed since our escape after the skirmish at the quarry. I took a long swig from the canteen and hauled myself up into the saddle, chary of the stab of pain from where Ramon's kicks had landed. Holding the pony to a gentle walk I directed him away from the house back up to the cave where Domingo would be awaiting my return.  
  
  
It was nearing sunset by the time I got there. Domingo had been watching for my arrival and rode down to greet me, full of solicitude. I spent the next couple of days in the cave, hacking up gobbets of phlegm as my lungs cleared themselves of the soot and smoke that I'd inhaled. Ramon's kicks had somehow managed to bruise rather than break ribs, much to my relief. Domingo was always at hand, seeing to my needs. His attitude spoke eloquently of his surprise at my success and survival, at times verging on hero worship.  
  
  
Although my body was healing, I was sick to my soul for the killing and destruction that I'd undertaken. I'd realised long ago that it ought to be far harder than it was to take a life, any life. The casualness with which I had been capable of despatching Ramon disturbed me more than I cared to openly admit. I wondered what sort of person I really was to be able to do that without a second thought, to even be happy at the man's death. Was it something that the War had given birth to or had it always lain dormant within my subconscious, merely waiting for the right stimulus to bring it to the surface? It was a question I dared not ask, for fear of the answer.   
  
  
When I felt well enough, I walked a little way from the cave to where I could sit down and see the sweeping vista of the Amazon basin. It truly was beautiful, but hidden underneath that beauty was oppression and torture, entire peoples enslaved to harvest the rubber in the forests and enrich the few who held the reins of power, that the public had coined the Rubber Barons. Dona Maria had doubtless fled there, to whatever sanctuary she had prepared.  
  
  
Truth was, I was bone weary of the fighting and killing. What had been envisaged as a retreat from the world had turned into a crusade. I was tired but I'd made a commitment, a promise to do what I could and as always, duty took precedent over everything else.   
  
  
This war I'd declared was by no means over yet.  
  
  
  
  
  
The End... for now 


End file.
